


Like Eternal Northern Lights

by midnightflame



Series: Homecoming [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Biting, Kissing, M/M, Want/Need, the things we do to salvage ourselves, this kinda sorta has plot/purpose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 21:44:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9258479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: There is nothing, in Keith’s opinion, quite as breathtaking as the moment when Shiro’s soldier-fine self control disintegrates in the face of instinct.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, I get to outlining things and lo and behold I'm writing this. Once again, this series is not written in sequential order, so sorry there but hopefully by the end things will start to make sense, and regardless, each can be taken by itself. This one is definitely more explicit (I haven't written something like this in way too long so apologies again), and as always I write with the idea that these two are consenting adults. Enjoy!

He’s standing there, expectant in all the ways Shiro hadn’t thought to anticipate. At least not tonight, when everything that day had been quiet and settled and so full of ordinary it had almost been enough to make all of them believe that this was home, unassailable and free, that they weren’t always sitting just a hair’s breadth away from another battlefront. A day that should have been the surefire guarantee of a good night’s sleep.

So, when Shiro heard the knock at his door and opened it to find Keith standing there, jacket and gloves long discarded, like he had been _searching_ for something, he knows that there is nothing ordinary enough about their days that could ever make them forget. 

They may have been amongst the stars for almost two years now, but it didn’t mean their wishes were openly granted. 

Shiro tips his head towards the inside of his cabin, stepping aside just long enough for Keith to slip inside, wordless. The door shuts with a soft metallic click. Shiro’s hand lingers over the locking mechanism, hesitant until he sees the rigid lines of Keith’s shoulders, the hands coiled into fists at his side. Without a second thought, he turns the lock; at the sound, something in Keith gives way, a tremor cascading down his back and pulling some of the iron out of his stance. 

“It’s one in the morning, Keith,” Shiro starts, quietly, willing to engage in conversation but still looking for answers. 

Keith turns, just enough that Shiro can catch the look in his eyes, guarded and unsure. “I know that. . .”

“And. . .?”

Shiro is walking towards his desk, more fitting for a classroom though it functioned as a decent enough table for one, when he’s stopped by a tug on his shirt.

“I’m not going anywhere. . .” he says, soft and supportive, imbued with all the confidence a leader like him is supposed to embody.

A confidence he knows Keith has seen through on more occasions than he’s ever been willing to admit. Just like he has now, his jaw set firm, his eyes glowing bright with rebellion. 

“You can’t promise me that. Or any of us, Shiro,” Keith begins. His voice is low and gritty with emotion, like sand just starting to be worked into glass, burning and raw and promising something brilliant by the end. “The longer we’re out here, the more planets we help, the worse our fight against Zarkon gets, and sometimes. . .”

It’s there that Keith stops, his brow knitting together, lips clamping down, afraid of the words he just might say. Like speaking them will cause them to burn into existence, a truth as solid as the scars that sit over their bodies, undeniable proof of the lives they lead and all the potential disasters they still might very well face. And there is something terrible about it all, Shiro thinks, in how they all falter over something.

How he stands here, the greatest downfall Keith has ever known.

Shiro isn’t even thinking when he turns on heel, when he brings his palms up to cup Keith’s face, when he presses their lips together and swallows down the little chirp of surprise Keith gives out over it all. Within seconds, Keith is clutching at his t-shirt, crumpling the fabric over his heart and at his right hip.

“I wasn’t finished,” Keith mutters, a bit breathless, but showing no indication of pressing on with his previous line of thought.

And Shiro can’t help but laugh at that, the sound low and heart-warming, as he leans in to kiss Keith gently once more. “I’m pretty sure you were.”

“Are you ever going to listen to me?”

“Are you?” Shiro retorts, and this time, it’s Keith silencing him with another kiss, a bit rougher than before, in perfect punishment for avoiding the question.

With a petulant nip of retaliation to Shiro’s lower lip, Keith finally exhales, his shoulders lowering with the sound, his hand unfurling over Shiro’s heart. He feels heavy, every bruise settling like stone, every cut filling with steel, every breath weighted and wanting. When Shiro presses his lips to his forehead, Keith sighs. He had come here for something, and now all of it is gone, just like that, with the slightest of touch, with the ease of Shiro’s smile and the warmth of his murmured words, full of reassurances, all of which Keith knows are impossibly genuine in this moment, unlike so many other times.

In this small space they call their own, Keith knows every ounce of it is true, all of it his and his alone. 

He leans up, taking Shiro’s mouth with his own. His eyes close as he brings his hand up to curl around Shiro’s neck and bring him down just that fraction of an inch more that he needed. Lips parting, he pushes his tongue against Shiro’s, into the slick heat of his mouth, and finds his heart rate accelerating at the way Shiro relents against him, inviting and open, denying him nothing at this moment.

And perhaps that. . .that is all that Keith wanted. 

Hands glide down his sides, stopping just briefly as they slide over the curve of his ass, and park just at the tops of his thighs. With only the briefest press of fingertips against him, Keith rises up and wraps his legs around Shiro’s waist. Seconds later, his back is against a wall, and Shiro is holding up more than his fair share of Keith’s weight. Mouth is on his throat, scalding, more than Keith wants to withstand in that moment, so he’s fisting a hand in Shiro’s hair and pulling back _hard_. 

Not that Shiro ever gave in easily. It’s only with a quick but sharp-enough-for-a-moan bite that he lets his head be guided back, all with that flash of teeth that tells Keith Shiro is sorry but not _that_ sorry.

“Since when did you get so rough?” Keith asks, smirking because he’s not really that hard pressed about it either.

Shiro is still smiling at him, eyes exquisitely dark with desire. “Around the same time you started getting so forward.”

“Yeah, well. . .someone wasn’t getting the hints.”

Laughter is all the response Keith gets for that, and the sound puts an ache in his core that reminds him of far too many things he would rather not consider in this moment. Like how Shiro is absolutely stunning sometimes, a steady pulse of light in the dark even as he thinks he’s that very darkness itself at times. How he’s the closest feeling to home Keith has found, and how that thought has nothing to do with Voltron or being millions of miles away from earth. 

His fingers release their grip, sliding instead towards Shiro’s jaw. When Keith kisses him this time, Shiro can taste the need boiling in his veins, the quiet fears that sit just beneath, all the gentleness that lies within the depth of that kiss. Asking him for everything but making him promise nothing. 

Only to give if it’s there to be given. 

It has Shiro squeezing his eyes shut, breath shuddering against Keith’s lips as he kisses him again and again. 

“The bed. . .” Keith murmurs as lips hold light against his own, his eyes sealed, his forehead pressing light against Shiro’s. And all Shiro can do is nod and comply, pulling them both to the bed and falling down into the mattress, their combined weight drawing a creaking groan from the bed. 

The sound has Keith chuckling softly, breathless. “Maybe you should get a new mattress.”

“And where would I find one of those” Shiro questions as he pulls at Keith’s shirt, tugging it free seconds later. His hands are quick to settle against skin, hot and wanting and leaving nothing for memory to forget. 

It’s like this every time, Keith thinks, with Shiro endlessly endeavoring to learn and re-learn that map of his body. Because there’s always something new, courtesy of battle efforts, and when Shiro finds something foreign, his fingers always still over the area, thumb tracing over and over until satisfaction hits. Sometimes it comes with a kiss, applied to new knowledge presented silver-pink over skin; other times it comes with a soft huff, as if the information has finally settled into its place within his head, and ends with this strange, amazed pulse of a smile over his lips. 

Right now, Shiro is tracing the outline of his most recent scar, his mouth pressed against the center of Keith’s chest, and it has the blood trampling through his heart at a deafening rate. Keith has his hand in Shiro’s hair again, fingers kneading against his scalp, his lips slack as his breath comes short and quick, completely anticipatory. 

And he’s not disappointed when moments later, Shiro has rolled him onto his back, situating himself between Keith’s legs as he pulls off his own shirt and tosses it, careless, over the edge of the bed. Below him, Keith is grinning, mischief curled all Cheshire Cat in the corners of his mouth, as he wraps his legs around Shiro’s waist and draws him down with all the steadfast force of a man knowing he’s laid the perfect trap. No need to rush, no point in tripping himself up.

Even if in the end, they’ll both be lost to their own designs, with no escape and no desire for it. 

Shiro’s hands plant on either side of his head, lips twisted into an amused smile. “You are rather forward. . .”

“That a problem, Shiro?” Keith asks, eyes half-lidded, that smile still curving his mouth beautifully. 

“Not today,” comes the answer, more of a low-whispered breath, silenced far too soon when Shiro’s mouth presses against Keith’s. 

Lips part, tongue flashes against tongue, but all Keith can register is the way Shiro’s right hand is unbuttoning his pants, sliding down his zipper and. . .and. . .the moan that comes is deep and grateful, Keith’s head tipping back to expose his throat to Shiro’s wandering mouth. His cock is hard, has been for who knows how long now, and Shiro is half-mindedly stroking him through the fabric of his boxers. 

He all but groans when Shiro’s hand leaves him bereft of pleasure seconds later, lamenting and just a touch frustrated. Above him, though, Shiro is sitting back with an absolutely wicked grin, lifting Keith’s leg and loosening his boot far _far_ too slowly. The first one eventually falls to the floor with a solid _thud_ , the second following in what feels like an agonizing eternity later. When Shiro starts to tug down his pants, boxers and all, Keith has to bite down on his lower lip, barring any further protest (which would have invariably earned him some sort of tease about _patience_ ) from making itself known, and tosses a forearm across his face. Just like the boots, Shiro is taking his sweet time and it’s whipping the ache in Keith’s core into a thought-maddening frenzy. 

His chest rises and falls rapidly as the cool of the air hits his exposed skin, quickening only seconds later as heat flares along his inner thighs where Shiro’s fingertips press eagerly against them. All his frustration is released in one throat-grating moan, as Keith lifts his hips involuntarily, eyes screwing shut beneath his forearm. 

Shiro skates his hands languidly along skin, leaning into the act until he can silence Keith and the quiet but perfectly audible spill of curses Shiro isn’t quite sure is meant to damn him into eternity or spur him on to more lucrative endeavors. It’s a drowning-in-the-depths, lung-scorching sort of kiss, drawn out almost as excruciatingly slow as his stripping efforts had been, and it leaves Keith with a mouthful of curses for an entirely different reason. 

His left hand wraps itself around the base of Keith’s cock. “Is there a problem?”

And Keith _really_ wants to hit Shiro across that perfect mouth of his, but there are fingertips swirling around the head of his dick, slicking it over with precum, and it has left him gasping rather shamelessly. As Shiro’s hand glides down the length of his erection, Keith exhales sharply, exasperated, “Yeah, you’re not fucking me yet!”

Shiro’s right eyebrow quirks, his head tipping to the side as if he hadn’t quite heard the statement correctly. He offers a light shrug, pressing his lips to Keith’s right shoulder, his chest, one to sternum then stomach. He pauses just after the last kiss, expression turning thoughtful, and yet again Keith is certain he’s going to kick Shiro right off the damn bed.

But then. . . _then_. . .Keith moans low in his throat. 

Shiro’s lips are against his inner thigh, right at the juncture of his hip, and he is sucking hard against his skin, which Keith knows will bruise spectacularly in the minutes that follow and it is everything he had hoped for. His arm slips from his face, eyes cracking open just enough to watch as his fingers entangle in Shiro’s hair, encouraging, as he starts to burn a trail of marks towards the jut of his hip bone. 

When he finally pulls away, Keith feels impossibly cold. Shiro is sitting back on his heels, completely stripped down and nestled perfectly between Keith’s legs, rummaging in a small drawer just off to the side. Keith knows what Shiro is after and instead of focusing on that, fixes his gaze on the hardened flesh between Shiro’s own thighs, tip wet and in Keith’s personal opinion begging for some sort of attention. As Shiro twists back around, a small bottle and the unmistakable square of a condom in his hand, Keith forces himself up onto his elbows. 

“Let me do it. . .” 

Shiro blinks at him, and when he doesn’t move, Keith reaches up and snags the condom from Shiro’s fingers. As recognition dawns, Keith just barely catches the blush suffusing light and pink across Shiro’s cheeks. The entire sight sends a wretched throbbing into his cock, leaving him with only one option: proceed, goddamnit, proceed. 

Sitting up fully, Keith unwraps the condom and holds it between his fingers as he sizes up Shiro’s cock. He’s seen it dozens of times before but never quite like this, with Shiro red in the cheeks and looking completely at a loss for what proper protocol would be in such a moment. The sight is more enough to drive Keith forward, claiming Shiro’s mouth with his own, the barest hint of a smile playing about the corners. He can feel Shiro’s mouth respond in kind, lips relaxing against his own; a hand nestles against the back of Keith’s head, fingers burrowing into hair. But it’s the ragged hiccup in Shiro’s breathing that finally has Keith moving again, his gaze dropping below as he eases the condom _slowly_ down the length of Shiro’s cock, with a notable and all too pleasing growl of pleasure earned for the effort.

His fingers brush against dark curls, lingering just long enough for Shiro to exhale shakily.

“ _Fuck_. . .” comes out low, trembling with barely restrained want, and it drives Keith’s heart to a pounding staccato rhythm. 

Shiro almost never curses, so when he does it sets something raw and painful ricocheting in Keith’s chest, especially in moments like this where he knows he is, without any doubt, the cause driving Shiro to that edge. 

“I. . .uhh. . .” But Keith can’t finish the thought, the words left hanging on his tongue as he catches sight of Shiro working lube over the tips of his fingers, efficient and single-minded. His eyes are as dark as mulled wine, with a look just as rich, just as intoxicating, and it makes Keith perfectly compliant when Shiro beckons him to shift his weight, sliding up along his thighs, just enough for him to insert the first finger inside. 

Keith wriggles at the cool press against him, an arm hooked around Shiro’s shoulders as he lifts himself just off of Shiro's thighs. It takes a rather valiant effort not to grind down against Shiro’s hand, not to beg for more, but as Shiro works his finger in then out in smooth succession, first one then eventually two, it becomes harder not to demand. 

Only Shiro saves him the effort, as he glances up at Keith, eyebrows raised, a small questioning smile over his lips. 

And it’s then that Keith remembers what he had forgotten to say just moments before. “I didn’t want to wait. . .”

“Then. . .?”

“Pretty sure I told you once already, Shiro,” Keith hissed out as Shiro removed his fingers with the same regulated precision he had done almost everything else. A breath regained, Keith is pulling himself up, his other arm wrapping around Shiro’s neck for better leverage. He sets his lips against Shiro’s ear, nips at the outer shell. “Are you going to fuck me or what?”

The tremor that takes Shiro’s body rocks right through Keith's own figure. He moans, heavy with want, against Keith’s neck, and there is nothing, in Keith’s opinion, quite as breathtaking as the moment when Shiro’s soldier-fine self-control disintegrates in the face of instinct. 

Keith digs his knees into the tangle of sheets beneath them, lifting himself up as Shiro’s hands slip along the curve of his ass, as they pull and part flesh just enough for the tip of his cock to push against Keith’s opening. And there, they pause, as they have so many times before, Shiro’s eyes findings Keith’s and holding there, waiting.

All it takes is a dip of his head to press their lips together. All it takes is a slow, practiced lowering for Keith to take in Shiro’s cock, complete with that filling warmth that always, always lures a gasp from his lips and leaves Shiro’s parted in return. Keith can’t count the times they’ve been here, at this exact place, but he knows that each and every time it never fails to excite him, to remind him just how brilliant Shiro can be when he’s not lost in one battle or another. 

Of just how stunning Shiro is when he’s forgotten every bit of the world but that small fraction of it that belongs to him and him alone. 

Keith moves in with slow and steady rhythm, matching the rise and fall of Shiro’s hips against him. Just long enough like this to feel adjusted, and then, with a bite to the curve of Shiro’s jaw, he readies himself. Above him, Shiro hisses at the small shock of pain, muscles cording tight beneath Keith’s teeth, and he retaliates with one sharp, punctuated thrust upwards that leaves Keith’s breath stumbling on its way out. 

His hands glide up the back of Shiro’s neck, the tips of fingers curling around the first threads of hair. Shiro grinds into him again, rough but not careless. Keith tugs harshly on Shiro’s hair, drawing his head back and exposing the line of his throat. He sets his mouth against the skin there as Shiro continues to drive his hips upwards. With every cut of teeth over skin, Keith is left gasping at Shiro’s counterpoint, until he drags his mouth away from throat and presses open-mouth kisses to lips and chin, Shiro’s name echoing until he’s on the verge of coming. 

And it’s only then that Shiro settles down, sacrificing rough and uneven for hard and steady. A minute more before Keith is spilling between them, followed seconds later by Shiro who rides out his orgasm with short, shallow thrusts, slow and slow and slower still until they are both panting, both undone.

Shiro settles his head against Keith’s shoulder, his arms wrapping tight around his body. “I’m still here. . .”

Keith can only nod, his fingers tightening once more around Shiro’s hair, his head buried against Shiro’s neck. 

“I know, Shiro. . .”


End file.
